Having postponed Champions and Challenge Cup games due to be played in France this weekend, European Professional Club Rugby might have spared Toulouse this ordeal in London. On a bleak night, this was a grim outing.
It began with a minute’s silence and there then followed 80 minutes of rugby misery for the visitors, not that they seemed to care. Saracens cheered their victory, but with no great feeling.
For the record, they played with professional accuracy and invention. There was a feeling – almost guiltily expressed by the faithful – that this was their best performance of the season. With Owen Farrell playing with real authority, the team set off at a gallop and kept their standards high, scoring three tries. They were excellent until they came within touching distance of the bonus point for a fourth – and then they rather dried up.
Toulouse began as if already heavy of heart, knocking on in their own 22 seconds after the kick-off and inviting Saracens to test their resolve.
Owen Farrell punished an offside with a penalty and Chris Ashton had a winding run that left three defenders in a heap. The penalties flowed, interspersed with the hint of a new-found subtlety in the hands of Mako Vunipola, when he slipped a pass out of the tackle to Farrell. The prop was soon at his more familiar, finishing off a collective forward drive for the opening try.
Toulouse resisted to a certain extent in that they formed a sort of wall but it was a token effort.
Out of nowhere, though, they sprang to life, with the giant Joe Tekori and Louis Picamoles popping passes back and forth. The visitors were on the move, cutting and sliding through the curtain of rain. Just as suddenly, however, they surrendered possession and Alex Goode launched a counter from his own 22, supported by Farrell and then Duncan Taylor, who could not quite find the overhead pass that would have completed the move.
Bolstered by the ongoing flow of penalties, Saracens came forward again, driving a scrum and then a maul. If there was resistance it came only in the shape of Census Johnston, a large prop crammed into Toulouse’s tight white away strip, who took the ring road around the maul and tried to steal through the back door. He was sent to the sin-bin, an easy one for the referee, George Clancy, and greeted by Johnston with a shake of his head that set a little ball of hair bouncing on its elastic band.
Against a seven-man scrum, Billy Vunipola made ground up the blind side and when the ball went into the open, it was shipped by the three-quarters – not without the odd wobbly pass – to Chris Wyles who slid over in the corner. The only surprise was that Farrell missed the conversion. Still, his first-half haul of 17 points was a sign of total authority.
Toulouse won themselves a kickable penalty with seconds left of this first period, but so great was the gap – 27 points – that they opted for a scrum.
It was the sort of decision a Romanian minnow might make in the Challenge Cup. To be taken by the most successful team in the European Cup was a sorry affair. Saracens defended ferociously and ended the half with a penalty in their favour.
The line they had just defended became the goal line they now attacked in the second half, and they immediately visited it, having picked off a ballooned pass that had trouble for Toulouse written all over it. Having cut their angles and made their yards, Saracens twisted for the line, with Farrell on top and Wyles on the ground. On review, the American was awarded his second try.
It was all over bar the bonus point, which would have to wait a while. The Toulouse pack, complete with weary-looking internationals from France’s woeful World Cup campaign – Yoann Maestri, Picamoles and Thierry Dusautoir – managed to rumble into the Saracens 22. A try was warded to the replacement hooker, Christopher Tolofua, after a series of drives.
These points sparked a period of positive stagnation for Toulouse. To lose was inevitable; to deny Saracens a bonus would be, well, a bonus, and they set about their task. In the rain and the cold and the growing scrappiness and the comings and goings to and from the bench, the game became bogged down between the 22s.
Saracens lost their zip and Toulouse held them at bay. Imanol Harinordoquy took a couple of catches at the lineout, one-handed reaches that told of golden days, but they were milliseconds in the long minutes.
It was a reward of sorts for Toulouse, a disappointment for Saracens. In days to come, the minutiae of a missed or a saved point will concentrate minds. But not on this night. Thoughts were elsewhere; the rugby did not matter.
